US Forces Exit Iraq
reuters.com
reuters.com
I am not even necessarily disagreeing with it (I lean very anti-Iran and slightly geopolitically neoconservative) but the tone is not at all neutral and makes no mention of the possible downsides of troops staying in Iraq after decades.
It reports on some reactions.
For instance:
> US forces leave country where 4,500 of them died in worst US war of 21st century
I am not even certain that this war was worse than the Afghanistan war. Perhaps the Iraq war was objectively worse, but since the sudden withdrawal in Afghanistan, leaving the Taliban in charge, I am not so sure which war was worse. I am not even sure how to qualify it, so Reuters stating this was the worst war is ... indeed a strange label to use. Wasn't Reuters indeed more objective in the past? And with that I mean objective at all times, not white-washing or black-washing.
I now finished reading the article and it indeed seems op-ed. The reader now thinks that the war against Iran must continue. I still fail to understand why the USA invaded the area. Other than some making enormous profits, of course. If 911 was used as a rationale, why was not Saudi Arabia attacked?
Iraq was 4500 dead for one Texan trying to imitate daddy while listening to his CEO buddies.
Now, there are certainly other axis along which you can judge a war.
> I am not even certain that this war was worse than the Afghanistan war
The Iraq war from 2003-2011 (8-9 yr) had twice as many US troop deaths (4430) as the Afghanistan war (~20 yr)(2450) in double the amount of time.
Perhaps the US are trying not even to acknowledge it. A reputable newspaper would normally include "the Department of War was contacted for comment" but maybe that's not appropriate for Reuters.
We have too many labels. That’s not good for a species which hates others based on different labels.
Edit: I should’ve expressed that this was a general thought triggered by the comment but it’s not a direct criticism of the person making it.
"Slightly geopolitically neoconservative" is the short way to describe that.
Thank you for taking the time to clarify your position.
Maybe each citizen of the world can have a vote. To make it fair, 1 US dollar of assets is one vote!
Hopefully we get a 2029 president who completely alters the alliance with Israel and makes further close association contingent on many serious changes in how they handle Gaza, the West Bank, and prosecution of terrorists and war criminals.
US leadership openly and proudly praises authoritarians and dictators around the world. What are you on about in here.
I am curious what did the world gain from this?
Seems "he tried to kill my father, now there's an excuse to take him out and turn his country into a democracy in the region, and a US-aligned entity" explains most of it.
Much like Trump, it's pettiness and prestige and a notion of more points on the board. (Though Trump did in fact attack Venezuela for oil, or possibly more so just to publicly boast about taking their oil and seem strong to his fans.)
There was certainly an argument to be made about the oil factor. [0]
Also look up the Halliburton controversy with respect to conflict of interest in the administration.
> Get rid of Israel and kill all the Jews
Your words, not mine
I haven't seen any serious circles and discussions that use israel as a scapegoat for every issue that arises, but it is also naive to deny what we see in front of our eyes and hear with our ears first hand from their own ministers; it's more clear now than ever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
The Balfour declaration article is a reference to how the occupation of Palestine came about; yes, there were specifically Jewish interests (only some Jews, by no means all), but there were also strong imperialist interests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Gaza
The British took Jerusalem in December, but it does not seem at all that they were occupying Palestine before in the sense that there was no more Ottoman resistance. Rather, large parts continued to be held by the Ottomans, who only surrendered in October 1918.
As for the population being kicked out, that was not in 1917/18 and not the feat of the British, but of the Jews (aided and abetted by the UN: expropriation plan), and in 1948. The British had, however, helped prepare the ethnic cleansing.
Anyway, what I meant by occupation in my previous comment was the current day occupation of Palestine by Jews mostly from Eastern Europe (Ashkenazi), who then “encouraged” Jews from other ME countries to resettle to Palestine, where they were creating a Jewish state.
Distracting people with the oil excuse gives cover to ppl who need it least.
And in pursuit of their noble goals, somewhat paradoxically (in the untrained eyes of the naïve observer) they resort to bombing the infrastructure, destroying all state institutions, including education, and also loot^H^H^H securing the national cultural heritage (to preserve in custody in private collections in the City on the Hill). Actually, their belief is so strong that 20 years later the infrastructure still isn't rebuilt (except for oil export, but that's not what it's about).
Ill-intentioned cynics will question the motives of these nation builders and judge them on the merit of their results, not on the holiness of their belief. They will point out that the ped^H^H^H … actually doesn't really love children, but acts in pursuit of highly selfish goals.
The most salient motivation was (perceived) security. The US government was absolutely paranoid after 9/11 and they really did not want Saddam to continue ruling in Iraq.
Downvote all you want, but the region had its first "nuclear" war in 2016 - with proliferation tracking "nukes" so really who cares. It blew itself up, it will blow itself up again.
Warrior cultures "Klingons" do not go to space, they go to heaven. All warrior cultures! Yes, that includes the whole viking-wotan setup too!
St.Fermi frowns at thee
For Israel, oil from Kurdistan: The revival of the Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline fell through but Turkey stepped in to enable transport.
For both, the neutralization of a regional actor. The chaos that also weakened its neighbors. Eventually, the destruction of Syria. A base and flight path to attack Iran.
Gonna collect em all.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank...
Come on, you can do better than this, Mossad.
> Come on, you can do better than this, Mossad.
Yeah, I'm sure that Mossad agents care what useful (?) idiots think on Hacker News.
> Yeah, I'm sure that Mossad agents care what useful (?) idiots think on Hacker News.
Only if they are not busy murderering citizens of other nations under false passports (https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/playing...),
exploding children with pagers (https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/09/exploding-pa...),
or kidnapping them for money in Denmark. (https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-heiress-accused-of-orde...)
I could do this all day, but I guess if I call out a wanted war criminal and his gang of extraordinary extrajudicial murderers, I am getting a call from Bibi’s wife and a severe case of radioactive poisoning.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vVFobCw6hIA&pp=ygUTU2FyYSBuZXR...
Finest people on the planet, if we lived in 1933. Winter is coming soon. I hear Hugo Boss is making fine coats.
Who wants to freeze when committing crimes against humanity, eh?
Although the Iraq war was based on a lie and caused tremendous suffering, it did demonstrate the US's willingness and capability to handle a brash dictatorship. In this sense, at least at a macro level, it has tempered (as opposed to emboldened) other dictatorships like Iran and North Korea.
Kind of crazy to lead with this. Talking about the Americans victims (mostly military) and ignoring the local Iraqi victims (mostly civilians).
Perhaps you will remember the Taguba report on Abu Ghraib, when a superior of his suggested he let it go because they were "only Iraqis".
You forgot to add that in 20 years time, America will go back to Iraq to make a film about how killing Iraqis made thier soldiers feel sad.
This is standard US procedure.
Welp, sounds like it wasn't going to happen.
Although the loss of that school is quite saddening :/ poor girls
I remember a speech at the UN, with a certain vial being held..
If I jump off a building and land on the pavement and break both of my legs this does not mean the person who is watching me from the street is as foolish as me despite us both ending up in the same place. The reason why I am dumber than this fictional observer is that we have not taken the same route to get there and I now have broken legs
https://thecradle.co/articles/why-does-the-us-still-control-...
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-control-venezuelan-oil-revenue-...
Classic Chappelle show skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFERPDn3i0o
Is that what the Iranian state media is telling you?
P.S. I have no idea what is Iranian state media or how to watch/read it.
So Iran with these partners and the population size and natural resources, its reasonable to say it is a regional power. And not a 'new' one, but has been for some time.
Look at the US allies in the region, they're all struggling to defend against Iran right now. The US is dangerously low on munitions to protect allies and much of the US's presence in the area has been bombed.
The US is losing this war.
Baath party is destroyed and no longer exists, political and underlying ethnic groups that propped it up are deeply marginalised and sidelined, political regime in place in Iraq is exactly the one America wanted to have there, and it WORKS: they have regular competitive elections (in the strictest sense of it: before the elections, no one can predict results in advance) and a well-functioning civil society where people can advocate for, or protest against things without it devolving to tribalism (not "Shia vs Sunni" riots or similar). Iraq as it currently is, is created by America and stands firmly on its feet.
Iraq: back back in the day, US really depended on oil coming from the Middle East. This problem was eventually resolved by fracking.
Tell me, if we don't care about Shia killing Sunnis, and we definitely don't care about Jews killing Muslims... why should we care about Muslims killing Jews? I'm Christian.
"In September 2014, the United States began to undertake efforts to establish a global coalition with the declared aim of countering the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.[26] Since September 2014, the U.S. had conducted military operations in Syria, primarily against ISIL forces as part of Operation Inherent Resolve."
More:
2025 elections: Briefing: Iran media call Iraq election result victory for 'Resistance' <https://monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/b0004xgt>
Amnesty International Report on human rights in 2025 <https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...>
If the goalpost is "being an impervious shield". I think a more reasonable expectation would be to prevent or respond to a Kuwait situation and keep shipping open. Obviously that second one is a huge failure.
But we have only seen bombings and angry tweets. The US military is capable of quite a bit more. It's a terrible path to go down (and we may do so in about a month), but we haven't seen the full capability of the military because the orange guy in charge only wants to do bombings and threaten genocide.
It wouldn't be worth disputing the semantics of what kind of black mark this is for the US as a global power, except that you use it to conclude there is no point to maintaining bases in the far east. If you think they don't matter, just look up any discussion of Chinese warplanning.
The last 5 years will be 5 chapters in history books